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Food Adventure in Tian He

All around Tian He

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Last week, after a super stressful few days, I decided that it was time unwind by…exploring and eating! So in the evening I headed out to Tian He.

My first stop was at Bread Papa’s on the 2nd floor of Grandview Mall. Bread Papa has come quite a long way; I remember getting a cream puff back when they opened their first store in Guangzhou at Grandview back in 2005 or 2006. Back then they only had one option on the menu! Now they have so many choices and they’ve opened so many stores all around China…

My feelings are quite mixed about Bread Papa. I would never rave about their cream puffs for they’re not that good, but I guess they do hit the spot it you ever get a craving for cream puffs. Bread Papa’s cream puffs are pretty big and filled right up with sweet custard-like cream. They bake their pastry right on location so it is fairly fresh. However, the one that I had had evidently been sitting around for a while for it was somewhat dry. Cream puffs are also somewhat messy to eat…I ended up with powdered sugar and filling all over my fingers.

After my cream puff fix I decided that I wanted cake. So I headed out to a bakery that I’d never tried before called Angel Simple. I had passed by the place a few times before and they have a large selection of cheesecakes so I decided that it was time to go and give them a try. Like Bread Papa, Angel Simple is a chain store that is fairly new on the Guangzhou food market; it wasn’t around till only a few years back.

After taking quite some time feasting my eyes on their large selection of cakes, I settled with the green tea cheesecake. Bad choice. The cake certainly looked promising, but it didn’t taste like cheesecake at all. It was light and airy, more like cream cheese whipped with cream…I guess it is an Asian thing, since dense, strong cakes aren’t favoured in this part of the world. The flavour of the green tea, however, was very subtle, almost too subtle to be noticeable. In the end the artificial flavours just became too much and I didn’t manage to finish the cake, even though the slice was fairly small…So, the credo is that if you like American cheesecake, don’t get your cake fix from a Chinese bakery.

After all that sugary stuff I wanted something salty. So I headed down to Festival Walk, the underground mall east of Teemall, and got some fried octopus balls (takoyaki) from one of the stalls.

I actually really liked this snack. For 6 RMB you get six takoyaki freshly made to order smothered with mayo and some brown sauce and sprinkled with dried fish flakes. The takoyaki itself didn’t have great flavour but it tasted good with the condiments. However there was a bit too much brown sauce, which was somewhat overpowering. I also do wish that the takoyaki had a crispier exterior as that would contrast with the soft centre quite well.

By the time I finished the takoyaki I was very full. However, I was determined to have some frozen yogurt before calling it a day. I headed over to Dolciberry, also located in Festival Walk. It seems like one of the few places in Guangzhou where one can find frozen yogurt. They’ve opened fairly recently and don’t have many flavours, only original tart and a “monthly special” which for at least the past two months has been mango. For 18 RMB you can get a small cup with one topping. I got the mango yogurt with pineapple topping.

The topping was canned pineapple, nothing special at all, but the mango yogurt was pretty good. It didn’t really have that yogurt-like taste that original tart has and which I don’t like all that much. However, it was really too much food for me so I left over half of it unfinished.

After stuffing myself I somehow did managed to hobble myself back home. Ah, it was a good evening.